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05 Dominio de Pingus, Ribera del Duero Flor de Pingus This is all that's left of last night with the flower of Pingus. truth about enzyte A desecrated pitcher, a glass that looks like it's melting in the morning light, and an upturned, deflowered bottle almost floating in the air, as if it might carry the night high into the next day. I'm not sure how the handmade Danish pipe comes into play. How this could be anyone's "second" wine, the wine equivalent of mismatched socks in a bin at TJMaxx, is beyond me, except to conclude that winemaker Peter Sisseck is a truly generous man. Still in its budding youth, this maniacally structured tempranillo is a force of dry blackberry fruit and oaky herbs that come off like a fistful of dried marjoram, dill, tarragon, violets, and rosemary branches. Fruity Turkish tobacco takes over after the fruit, finishing with the homecooked savory tastes of clove, specks of cumin, Gauloises tobacco, and beedi cigarettes. Yes, the operative word is dry, because while the fruit is rich, the tannins come to dominate this wine as they would in a young Bordeaux or tannat. And, yes, that dryness and most of these flavors are all wood. Yet, even at this developmental age, things are starting to come together. What's most impressive is that, even with so much oak, the wine is never creamy or "luxurious" the way an Aussie shiraz or cult Cali wine might be. You'll argue with me, but this is indeed a reverentially Old World wine with some of the most gnarly Spanish fruit you'll ever try. The wood's giving it life right now, while the fruit learns how to live. For the open-minded, there's great nuance and balance. It's what your historic, cellared vintage wines taste like before anyone realizes they're great. Which is why the rest of my bottles are now under lock and key. And I'm throwing away the key. posted by Nilay Gandhi | What do you think? (0) Then there's the rest of Crozes-Hermitage. Maybe it's because I always hated the black jellybean. I hated it even more when I'd have a handful of delicious red ones and one black one snuck in to ruin it all. Rousset's syrah is austere, like a good cru Burgundy opened a few years too early. The tannins are so stern, they spear the air--a Trojan horse on the otherwise floral bouquet--with that feeling of soapy water up my nose. There's great depth here beyond the taste of bitter licorice, rose thorns, oven cleaner, and watered-down liquid Tylenol. And I bet when the tannins die down, this wine will be relatively luxurious. Well, that is, if you could freeze the rest of the wine in time. But the truth is that, by the time the hard edge on Rousset's syrah calms down, the fruit just won't be there anymore. Maybe some smokiness could come out. Maybe even a bit of bacon fat, which is the thing this wine is missing most. It makes bacon sad that the 2003 Rousset Crozes-Hermitage doesn't taste like bacon. It says something, though, that I only think of what this wine might be, not what it is today. I don't doubt that there's a lot of heart here. Every bit of violet and sweet raspberry that pokes through carries with it that great Old World punch that so many anti-Parkerites would swoon over. Ideology isn't enough reason to love a wine, though. And while I don't think a vintner should ever pander to a critic's taste, he should also be careful not to forget his drinker. Who is me. Sitting here. Painfully, wantonly wanting more. Not because of points, or greed, or being American. Because my heart beats hard. posted by Nilay Gandhi | What do you think? (0) If I could create a new wine appellation, I'd call it Grand Crozes. It would encompass all the best, most creative off-label wines in northern Rhone. And each year we'd honor the best one with an award. One named after Philippe Faury, who makes this the model for all such wine. The key to knowing this wine is reading the label and seeing that it's "recoltant" in Chavanay. Which should mean nothing to you, but is this wine's sweetest truth. In other words, Philippe picks these grapes with his own two hands (well, and maybe those of some voluble ex-pat imports) somewhere near the town of Chavanay, France, in the heart of the great St. Joseph/Condrieu straddle where some of the world's greatest reds share schist with some of the world's greatest whites. Easy to call it "vin de pays," country wine, when this is your vin and this is your pays. And like the ambiguously attractive teen actress who removes her glasses and shakes her hair to reveal the object of every great football player's desire, this Faury syrah is a score. Its juicy red fruit flavors are romantic, first of strawberries and raspberry sorbet, then cherries, red plums, dried apricots, white peaches, and kumquats. It tastes like a blend of new and old--its tannins as smooth, soft, and powdery as a 10-year-old Cornas, its fruit as fresh as the sweet grapes off the vine and as clean as iced sangria. Which gets me back to Crozes, Crozes-Hermitage, so often home to "everyday" wines like this that achieve such great balance and sensuality (unlike the more popular Cotes-du-Rhones) in their youth. That's where the inspiration for this Faury comes from, despite his roots maybe 50 kilometers north of there. Wines where you finish the glass, then the bottle, asking why you'd ever need to age anything. Maybe because some day, your Faury well will run dry, and you'll need the reserves in the cellar to turn to. So why should we ever grow old? posted by Nilay Gandhi | What do you think? (0) There is so much intelligence in this wine. I've been drinking it for two days, and it's battled me with every sip. Any sauvignon blanc drinker would love it, but they're pretty easy to please. Most sauv blanc is the light lager of wine--as long as you make it clean, it's going to taste just fine. And Bouke does. It does taste just fine. But I needed to sit with it for a bit. Does it know what it's really made of--the chardonnay, pinot gris, and gewurztraminer? After the tart sauv blanc dies down (why is this grape always so terrified of air?), there's a surge of Fuji and Golden Delicious apples from the chardonnay, an incredible backbone of white pepper creme anglaise, lychee, and ramps from the Alsatian-style pinot gris and gewurz; and I know winemakers Lisa Donneson and Gilles Martin don't age this in oak, but I wonder if a field of wild orange blossoms ever comes into play. You can smell the petals and the pollen almost honey-like in this wine. Ultimately, it stakes an important claim for Long Island, which has put so much effort into red Bordeaux varietals that often end up rubbery and dank. Bouke suggests that maybe it's not the grapes we need to focus on--maybe it's the inspiration. posted by Nilay Gandhi | What do you think? (2) In Oregon, they call this Bergstrom. In California, they call this Sea Smoke. In the Rhone, it is Domaine Royer. But what's amazing is that, somehow, in Walla, this can still be called merlot. Because I don't mean it tastes like pinot or syrah or grenache. It's not that. It's more that this wine defies the conventions of its varietal the same way the other three great vintners I mentioned do. At once both heavily extracted and heavily attuned to its DNA, the Ash Hollow is nothing if not all the pomp, circumstance, and bombast of Parker-era New World wine. It does nothing to define terroir. Instead, it spends all its time positioning the hand of its winemaker, which is large, deliberate, and decidedly hairy. By which I mean, let's not kid ourselves. This wine is not abalone sashimi. It's beef Wellington--a perfect cut of filet mignon unnecessarily coated in foie, mushrooms, butter, and motherfucking puff pastry. It's ripe with unctuous flavors of strawberry, blueberry, hints of fennel, and the most complex aroma of white pepper and leather. It's easy to try this wine and think it's just another juicy American merlot. It almost is just that. It almost is too much. Which means it's just right. Just perfectly right. And in so many ways not the kind of wine I've normally championed on this site. I don't taste a bunch of rocks and gravel, nitrogen and UV radiation. I taste a shot in the dark; one that hits right in the heart and keeps aiming in that same direction as I fall. First it hurts. Then I'm filled with rage. Then I'm weak, and see my life, and everything I've loved, and am filled with light, flowers, and the incurable desire to keep going on. posted by Nilay Gandhi | What do you think? (0) Please, listen to me. It's not bacon, it's pancetta. That's what everyone who talks about Cote-Rotie, the French Rhone valley's most powerful expression of the syrah grape, is missing. Smoky, yes, but great Cote-Rotie isn't like the bold syrah of California or Washington. It's so much more delicate. Maple wood over hickory. Black pepper over smoked paprika. I know; we want to use words like "tar" and "blacktop" as tasting notes, but that's why I'm infatuated with this Andre Francois. It's the difference between going to a strip club and a burlesque bar--yeah, it's still slutty, but at least it's not going to make you cheat on your wife. There's an art to it that no one else would understand. You could almost call it dance. And your friends will just think you're selfish (which you are), and you'll go on laughing, throwing singles in the general direction of this bottle on the floor. Raspberry and grape jam and quince, violets and baked Nicoise olives, with a visceral, umami backnote that makes it both tasty and spiritual. The spirit, by the way, is the viognier, which is blended up to 20% with syrah. That's why "roasted slope" is such an overstatement, and good producers know this. Its balance tempers the meaty syrah, while its citrus and vanilla open my eyes to something new. One molecule less, and it's a basic Cotes du Rhone. One woodchip more, and it's a haughty U.S. or Spanish wine for $100/bottle. posted by Nilay Gandhi | What do you think? (0) They should make bars out of sponge and copper, so you could go to Barcelona, pull up a leather stool, open up a 150-Euro tin of smoked mussels, and ring four ounces of this stuff into your glass. The six months of vanilla-laden French and American oak in this wine brings more than body and structure--it gives purpose to this wine the way a good suit can make you stand taller. Sure, some might just call it the macquillage, but what's a pretty face without any makeup or a chiseled face without chiseled hair? Arzuaga's La Planta, fittingly named after the winery's own game preserve, wears its wealth well. It's a cobbler of blueberries and Nicoise olives cancered with extra skin--roundly fruity, barely tannic, and with a smoky, leathery finish that seems slightly diseased. This could be on a shelf next to Washington merlot and Napa cabernet--it's that kind of New World, everything-friendly wine. But still it manages to stand out on its own. Take me somewhere, however briefly, like a broadband connection could. I guess I'm saying it's distant, but fast-approaching; advanced, but accessible; quiet, but full of communication. posted by Nilay Gandhi | What do you think? (0) This is the kind of wine that could move a plot along. If only Jack had slipped Miles a bottle of this in Sideways--he could've become a Sartre scholar instead of just a miserably lonely drunk (OK, maybe that's not that big a difference). "I am not drinking any fucking merlot!" "...got any malbec?" Odds are some of the merlots he so fuckingly detested had a dose malbec, anyway. The La Posta reds do start to run together--the bonarda's just as spicy and heavy-handed--but this malbec has gobs of glycerine-coated blueberry and blackberry fruit behind the tobacco, alcohol, and smoky, briary tannins. The subtle sandalwood-like French oak (mostly old) is loud, but balanced, adding texture without creaming out the juicy fruit. Barbacoa beef seemed fitting, both as a pairing and as a tasting note. Burgers and barbecue, spit-roasted whole buffalo, God kill something. Sometimes I wonder if Argentina is just a killing floor. If you come out at night beneath the stars in Mendoza, so peaceful, can you hear the squeal in the distance? Maybe Sideways isn't the right reference. The more I drink this wine, the more I think of Apocalypse Now. |